Action: Inhibitory action against HIV-1; inhibits replication of the virus by incorporating into cellular DNA by viral reverse transcriptase, thereby terminating the cellular DNA chain
Uses: In combination with other antiretroviral agents for HIV-1 infection
Unlabeled uses: HIV prophylaxis following occupational exposure
Contraindications
Black Box Warning: Hypersensitivity, moderate/severe hepatic disease, lactic acidosis
Precautions: Pregnancy (C), breastfeeding, children <3 mo, granulocyte count <1000/mm3 or Hgb <9 5 g/dL, severe renal disease, impaired hepatic function, HLA B5701+ (black, Caucasian, Asian patients), abrupt discontinuation; Guillain-Barré syndrome, immune reconstitution syndrome, MI, obesity, polymyositis
Dosageandroutes
• Adult and adolescent ≥16 yr: PO 300 mg bid or 600 mg/day with other antiretrovirals
• Adolescent <16 yr and child ≥3 mo: PO 8 mg/kg bid or 16 mg/kg daily, max 300 mg bid with other antiretrovirals
Hepatic dose
• Adult: PO (Child-Pugh 5-6) (oral sol) 200 mg bid; moderate to severe hepatic disease, do not use
HIV prophylaxis (unlabeled)
• Adult: PO 600 mg daily as an alternative
Available forms: Tabs 300 mg; oral sol 20 mg/mL
Administer:
• Give in combination with other antiretrovirals; do not use triple therapy as a beginning treatment, resistance may occur
• May give without regard to food
• Reduce dose in hepatic disease, use oral sol
• Storage in cool environment; protect from light; oral sol stored at room temperature; do not freeze
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
“Good-evening, Senor Maynard,” was his greeting. “Did you think that you had seen the last of me?”
“Hardly,” gritted Hal. “I have always heard that the devil is more busy than successful.”
“Take a seat, senor,” urged Vasquez, pushing forward one of the few chairs in the room. “As to you, my good fellows,” turning to the four thugs who had vanquished Hal, “you may step just outside the door.”
As almost anything was more comfortable than the floor, Hal availed himself of the chair.
Next he turned a look of cool scrutiny upon the Spaniard.
Yet, if Hal looked cool, his appearance was far from expressing his feelings.
He fully realized that never before had he been in such a critical situation.
In fact, with such a foe as Vasquez, who, under the circumstances could not be placated, there was little hope that the American could escape with his life.
Senor Vasquez drew out a cigar, lighted it, and puffed slowly for some time before he began to speak.
Yet, while thinking, his brow grew blacker.
“Senor Maynard,” he finally blurted out, “are you not ashamed to be an American?”
Hal turned eyes that were wide open with surprise upon the man pacing the floor before him.
“Ashamed of being an American?” he repeated. “Senor Vasquez, are you training for a humorist? How can any American live without finding life one long thrill of pride that he is part and parcel of the Stars and Stripes?”
“Bah!” retorted Vasquez, impatiently. “Shall I tell you what your greatest fault is?”
“If you care to.”
“You Americans are not honest,” went on the Spaniard. “You lie, cheat and steal, always pouring the pesetas or dollars into your pockets, and laughing at the more simple more honest people of other nations from whom you derive your dishonest profits. Nowhere do you find easier victims than the old-fashioned, simple, trusting, generous, honest Spaniards.”
“Of whom I suppose you are one?”
“Of whom,” repeated Vasquez, sadly, “I am one.”
Hal could not keep back the burst of laughter that sprang to his lips.
“Why do you laugh?” demanded Vasquez, angrily. “Because you have duped me so easily?”
“Because you have duped yourself so easily,” retorted Hal, with spirit. “You vaunt your honesty, you who have never earned an honest dollar in your whole career. You, a simple, trusting man, when you cannot look back upon a single month in twenty years when you have not used the fear of fire or the assassin’s knife to inforce the payment of exorbitant claims against Americans who were new to the island! When you look into your own heart, Vasquez, can you blame me for laughing at your pretenses?”
But Hal did not laugh now. His voice rang with a scorn and contempt that were too deep for merriment.
“Your employer owed me money,” went on Vasquez, plaintively.
“He has paid you far more than he ever owed you. That I know from the dealings I have had between you. As near as I could place it, you have robbed him, in three years, of at least twenty thousand dollars more than you were entitled to. Yet you prate about honesty!”
“He owes me two thousand dollars,” insisted the Spaniard, doggedly. “Senor Richardson escaped from Cuba yesterday, and left me sighing in vain for my money I find that you have collected, within the last twenty-four hours, money of his enough to pay me. Yet you refuse to turn it over to me.”
“Of course I refused,” voiced Hal. “I should have been false to my trust if I had paid over my employer’s money without authority from
him.”
“And that is why I call you dishonest,” cried Vasquez. “You have conspired, you two, to defraud me of my money.”
“You didn’t conspire to have me sent to Morro Castle, did you?” sneered Maynard.
“Now,” resume the Spaniard, ignoring all the inconvenient points in Hal’s reply, “I have stated fully my grievance against you. Do not think, you Yankee pig, that you can hope to dupe me any longer. You are now dealing with a Spaniard of honor!”
Vasquez drew himself erect and puffed his chest out as if he believed his vainglorious boast.
Halting suddenly before the boy, he glared at Hal with burning eyes, and demanded, with a pause after each word:
“Where—is—that—money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yet you had it.”
“Certainly?”
“Then what did you do with it?”
“I shall never tell you,” retorted Hal, with spirit.
Now Vasquez’s passion escaped all bounds.
“Oh, you Yankees! Oh, you thieves!” he declared, violently, pacing the room like a caged hyena. “You hope to dupe us, even when you are in our power.”
Then his voice became sarcastic, as he went on:
“Senor, do you know how we Spaniards love you Yankees? Do you realize what happiness it would give us to caress you? To caress each and every one of your people—to caress them so?”
Pausing in his agitated walk, Vasquez drew a knife, making a significant gesture of cutting a throat.
“That is the way we would like to treat all you Yankees,” went on the Spaniard. “No! I mistake. That would be much too quick a punishment. We must be more ingenious in our punishment of the impudent Yankees—even as I propose to deal with you now.”
Under that fierce, malicious gaze, Hal Maynard felt himself growing “creepy.”
It did not afford him much satisfaction, even, to see Vasquez put away his knife, for the Spaniard’s word and manner left little doubt that the knife would be put aside only in favor of a more fearful method of revenge.
“Senor, I ask you, for the last time, what did you do with the money?”
“And I refuse to tell you a word.”
“Did you understand that I was asking for the last time?”
“Yes!”
Hal fairly hurled the short, defiant retort.
As Senor Vasquez realized that it was too late for parley, he raised his voice, shouting:
“Pedro! Jose!”
Instantly the door opened. Vasquez’s four agents filed into the room.
“Bind the pig! Gag him!” directed the Spaniard, tremulously.
These orders were swiftly carried out, for, though Hal Maynard struggled manfully, he was like clay in the hands of so many desperate fellows. Weights were tied to his feet.
“He is ready,” voiced Vasquez, glaring at last at his helpless foe. “Pedro, open the shutters over there.”
Out he was thrust, face down, his startled eyes gazing down at the muddy water of Havana harbor but a few feet below him.
“Ready, my good fellows?” quivered Vasquez.
“Ready, senor!”
“Then drop him!”
Through the darkness of the night shot a human form. Plash!
Hal Maynard’s bound and weighted form sank below the foul waters. He had gone to share, in a different way, the fate of the Maine heroes!
CHAPTER VI.
CUBA’S NEW RECRUIT.
Rub! rub! rub!
Chafe! chafe! chafe!
Under the shed over a wharf one human figure bent over another. Rub! rub! rub!
With the quiet but energetic heroism of common humanity, the rescuer strove to bring back the spark of life to a young man only just snatched from the engulfing waters.
“It is odd, strange!” muttered the rubber, pausing for an instant to look at the lifeless figure. “Can it be possible that I was too late—or that I am too clumsy?”
He bent anxiously over the still figure.
“It would be a great thing to fool Senor Vasquez,” murmured the Cuban, for such he was. “Moreover, I would like greatly to save this American, who trusted me even as I trusted him.”
For some minutes more he continued to chafe the wrists and body of Hal Maynard.
“A sip or two of brandy might save him—but how shall one get brandy, which costs twenty-five pesetas a bottle? Perhaps——”
But Juan Ramirez suddenly and resolutely checked the thought that perhaps he might be justified in using some of the money intrusted to him by our hero.
“He said that belonged to another. Therefore he would not thank me to use some of it to save his life.”
Such was the simple creed of honor of this Cuban.
He was soon rewarded, however, by a flutter of the eyelids, a sigh from the unconscious one.
“Santa Maria! He still lives!” cried the Cuban, now overjoyed, and working as if his own life depended upon the result.
A minute later Hal Maynard opened his eyes.
Juan bent so low over him that, despite the darkness, our hero recognized his rescuer
“Ramirez?” he murmured.
“At your service, Senor Americano.”
“But I was dropped into the harbor—weighted.”
“And I, senor, was fortunate enough to be near by.”
Hal blinked stupidly, having by no means recovered his wits as yet.
“Rest easily, and breathe freely,” counseled the Cuban. “Do not try to move yet. Do not even try to think.”
Hal obeyed, lying there for two or three minutes before he tried again to speak.
“Where are we now?” he asked, finally.
“Senor, I would caution you not to speak above a whisper. We are both in danger, if some unfriendly prowler should overhear us. Let me raise you—so. Now, do you see the building over yonder that rests upon the water’s edge?”
“Yes.”
“It was from one of those windows that you were dropped.”
“And you——”
“I was prowling near, senor. No sooner did the scoundrels hear the splash than they closed the window. It was then that I dove into the harbor, swam to you, and found you some ten feet below the surface. It was a simple matter to cut the ropes that bound the weights to you. Then I brought you here. That is all, senor.”
“All?” echoed Hal, now sitting up. “It seems to me, my friend, that you make a very modest statement of your noble action.”
“Senor, to-day you trusted me. In return I could not do less.”
“And it was you, I am sure, who went to the British consulate——”
“I was there, senor.”
“And it was you who lodged the information that resulted in my release at the Prefatura.”
“It was I, senor, as you have guessed,” Ramirez quietly replied.
“You have been my good angel to-day,” cried Maynard, gratefully
“I could not do less, senor, after a stranger had trusted me.”
“And it was you who warned me to-night that I was being followed.”
“Wrong this time, senor. It was a friend of mine.”
“Yet he worked at your instigation?”
“True.”
“And, finally, you have saved me from certain death.”
“All of which, Senor Americano, gives me occasion to rejoice,” answered the Cuban, simply.
Hal now managed to get upon his feet. No sooner did he find himself facing the Cuban than he warmly grasped the latter’s hand.
“I owe you my life and the safety of my money,” cried Maynard, impulsively. “Yet I never saw you before to-day. Pardon me if such great friendliness bewilders me.”
“I have done only what any Cuban would do for an American,” was the quiet reply. “I offer you one more service before leaving you. You were bound to some ship?”
“The British brig, Emeline Atwood.”
“I know her berth. I will lead you there. Once on board, you should be safe. Come; I will show you the way, senor.”
“Wait just one instant,” implored Hal. “Ramirez, such friendship as you have shown to-day is seldom met with. Pardon me if I seek to learn something about you.”
“There is little to tell,” responded the Cuban. “I love this people and their island, for I am one of them. I have done, as perhaps you have guessed, all in my power to serve Cuba. You see, senor, I do not hesitate to trust you. You will wonder why one of my sentiments is not in the Cuban army. I will answer that question before you ask it. It is forbidden to a Cuban to join our patriot army unless he can bring with him a gun and some ammunition. When I can do that, I shall leave Havana and take to the long grass where the insurgents, if not as thick as locusts, are fighting as bravely as lions. Beyond that I can tell you little, except that I have no living relatives. All have died of starvation, and my greatest dread is that I shall starve before I am ready to strike out for the long grass.”
Simple and brief as Ramirez’s statement was, it was the eloquent account of a patriot who would die for his cause and country, and who would die with equal cheerfulness, either of starvation in Havana, or under arms in the field.
There were tears in Hal’s eyes as he heard the simple story. But Ramirez cut short his reflections by saying:
“Senor, not all of our danger is behind us. If you are going to the English ship, let me advise you that we should start at once.”
“Just one more question before we go,” interposed Hal. “You spoke of a gun and ammunition. Can they be obtained here in Havana?”
“When one has the price, senor.”
“And what is that price?”
“Well, if I had twenty-five dollars I could buy a rifle and a pocketful of cartridges. But, why speculate? Twenty-five dollars is not to be found.”
“You are right,” responded Hal. “Let us find the brig.”
Ramirez guided him from the wharf and led him down a dark street, halting every few steps to make sure that they were not being followed.
Of a sudden, the Cuban, every instant alert, dragged our hero into a doorway.
“Here comes the patrol,” whispered Juan.
Hal listened, yet it was some moments before he could hear the tramp of soldiers.
“Your hearing is wonderful,” he whispered.
“It is said,” replied Ramirez, “that starvation quickens all the senses.”
“And you are starving?” uttered Hal, feeling as if he were choking.
“Far from it,” was the answer. “I ate a quarter of a loaf of bread the day before yesterday.”
“And since——”
“I have had several drinks of water, but it was warm and therefore not palatable.”
Terrible as this statement was, it was made quietly, without the least trace of a desire to parade misery.
Tears glistened in Hal Maynard’s eyes. He was about to speak when Ramirez cut him short by whispering:
“I find that this door behind us opens. That is fortunate, for otherwise we would perhaps be captured.”
Silently both moved into the hallway. Trying not even to breathe, they listened as a score of Spanish regulars or volunteers marched by.
Only a few yards further on they heard the command halt. Then followed a dialogue between an officer and a belated pedestrian. It was soon evident that the latter could not give a satisfactory account of himself, for they heard the officer break in sharply:
“Enough! Step in between the files. You shall tell the rest of your story at the Prefatura.”
Tramp, tramp! sounded the squad, marching on again. Ramirez listened until long after Hal had heard the last footfall.
Then the door was opened once more, and the pair stole out to the sidewalk.
“We are safe,” breathed Ramirez. “Walk quickly for a minute, and you will be aboard your ship.”
A prediction that was realized, for, without further mishap, they reached the wharf and walked its length.
“Who comes here?” growled a gruff voice.
Hal’s heart gave a jump at sound of the old, dear, familiar English tongue.
“We are friends. I am an American,” he replied, stepping in advance. “I wish to speak with the captain.”
“You’ll find him on board, sir,” replied the sailor, more respectfully.
“I must leave you, senor,” whispered Ramirez, adding, when he saw Hal’s look of surprise: “The money that you intrusted to me I left with friends. Do not be uneasy. In twenty minutes you should see me back.”
Before Hal could grasp his hand to wring it, Ramirez had glided off in the shadows.
“Of all the true hearts in the world,” gasped Maynard, admiringly. “Will he come back? I wish I were as sure of heaven!”
Without a doubt regarding Ramirez, our hero turned and went aboard the brig.
Only three words of introduction were needed to secure a warm grasp from Captain Blodgett’s hand:
“I’m an American.”
“And left behind, eh?” demanded the captain. “We sail at midnight; Norfolk; there’s plenty of room aboard.”
“May I speak confidentially with you, sir?” asked Hal.
“Of course.”
They conversed in low tones by the rail for ten minutes. After that they turned, looking shoreward.
At length, Ramirez appeared. No sooner did he reach the wharf than he struck into a trot that did not slacken until the Cuban reached the Atwood’s deck.
“Your money, senor,” announced the breathless messenger Diving under his jacket, he produced a bag.
“To my belief it has not been opened. Nevertheless, senor, you will do me a great favor to count the money, and thus acquit me of all suspicion.”
“At your request only I do so,” answered Hal. “Captain, may we use the table in your cabin?”
“In more ways than one,” was the hearty answer. “Follow me below, gentlemen.”
There, upon the table the bag was opened, the money poured forth. Not much time was required in the counting. Two thousand dollars was restored to the bag. The balance, sixty dollars, Hal stowed away in his own pockets.
“My own money,” he announced. “Ramirez, how can I ever thank you for all your honesty and goodness?”
“Since your people have been our friends for three years,” came the reply, “it is enough for me to know that I have served an American. And now I must take my leave of this vessel.”
“I also,” replied Hal, rising.
“You?” echoed Ramirez, amazed, while Captain Blodgett looked gravely on.
“Certainly,” rejoined Hal; “I am going with you.”
“With me, senor? Where, may I ask?”
“To the long grass, if you will take me.”
“You? Santa Maria! Do you mean, senor, that——”
He paused, utterly bewildered, but Hal Maynard finished, quickly: “Ramirez, I saw a man when I met you. I am anxious to prove my own manhood. I offer myself as a recruit to fight Spain!”
CHAPTER VII.
THE TEMPTATION OF PEDRO.
Had a bombshell exploded near the Cuban, he could not have been more excited.
“You a recruit?” he gasped.
“Why not?” laughed Hal. “Am I not healthy enough, or do you fear that I would run at the first fire?”
“Senor, you would be a valuable recruit, but you are not a Cuban.”
“Is that a disqualification?”
“But this rebellion is not your affair, senor. You belong to a free people, and have no need to fight for Cuba.”
“There are already many Americans who take a different view. With Maximo Gomez and Calixta Garcia there are scores, if not hundreds, of American citizens. I have not heard that they make poor soldiers. Ramirez, I owe my life to you You are a Cuban. Therefore, I owe my life to Cuba. I have no family ties; no obligation except to my employer. Captain Blodgett has undertaken to deliver the money to him. There is nothing to hold me back. You have remained in Havana because you did not have the twenty-five dollars with which to buy a gun. I have enough to buy two. Will you take me to the insurgents, or will you go alone?”
Ramirez still hesitated for a moment; next he darted forward seizing Hal’s hand.
“Senor, if you are in earnest, I will show you the way.”
“It is settled, then,” was all Hal Maynard said.
“Oh, this is glorious!” cried Ramirez, his eyes becoming misty. “At last I am to be able to join the Cuban army. More than that, I shall take a comrade with me.”
“Here is all the money I have in the world,” added Hal, turning his funds over to Juan. “Henceforth, it belongs to Cuba.”
“Let us lose not a moment’s time,” urged Ramirez, his eyes dancing with delight. “Senor, I am afraid to move, for fear I shall wake up and find it all a dream. I cannot delay for a second.”
“Nevertheless,” broke in Captain Blodgett, “I hope you will dally here for a little while. Young men, you are starting into an island where starvation reigns. Let me offer you a square meal—the last, perhaps, that you will get for weeks to come.”
“I do not need food,” declared Juan, trying to puff out his thin cheeks. “Happiness will sustain me.”
“I’m hungry, and not ashamed to say so,” interposed Hal, with a laugh. “If Captain Blodgett will do something to relieve that, I beg you, my dear fellow, to wait here a few moments.”
Juan reluctantly consented. A bustling steward soon had the table spread with hearty food.
Hal ate a hearty meal. Ramirez fed like one famished.
“Bah!” uttered the Cuban, rising in disgust at last. “I have made such a wolf of myself that I am not fit to walk. But to you, captain, I offer a thousand thanks for your hospitality, and a thousand apologies for the spectacle I have made of myself.”
“I shall hold together until to-morrow,” murmured Hal, rising with a satisfied air. “Captain, my most earnest thanks.”
Now the bustling steward came back with two parcels of food which he helped the young men to stow away under their jackets.
Captain Blodgett, hearty, if somewhat taciturn, followed them to the deck, slipping into Hal’s hand a receipt for the money, which he undertook to forward to its destination.
“The best of good luck, lads,” came in an earnest whisper from the English captain, as he offered each a hand at the same time.
They stepped ashore, Ramirez acting as guide.
Of all that followed, during the next two hours, Hal had, at the end of that time, only the vague recollection that follows a dream.
But they reached the southern outskirts of Havana without mishap; they trudged along a dusty country road, dodging behind trees or into the brush whenever Ramirez’s acute hearing warned them of the presence or approach of military.
“Do you see those lights ahead?” queried Juan, at last.
“Yes.”
“Those lights come from the Inn of the Red Cavalier. It is the inn where Spanish officers dine when they return from the interior well provided with plunder taken from those who had yet something left to lose. Judging by the sounds, there are officers dining there now.”
“A good place to keep away from, eh?” queried Hal.
“By no means, senor. Keep close to me, and I hope to show you that such places as the inn are useful to the insurgents.”
Ramirez left the road, plunging into the depths of a grove.
The nearer he came to the inn the more slowly he moved.
Frequent bursts of laughter were now audible from the inn.
“They are happy, the Spanish fiends,” muttered Juan, grating his teeth. “Yet, senor, they are feeding on the very blood of Cuba!”
Rattle of dishes and clink of glasses came to the ears of the listeners. Outside the inn were tethered some two score of horses, while soldiers lolled about over the ground, some eating bread, while others puffed at cigarettes.
“Twenty of our own brave Cuban fellows could stop that gayety forever,” growled Ramirez, savagely
“But there are at least forty of the enemy,” observed Hal.
“It is no matter. Twenty of our men would do. But hush! There is the gleam of a soldier’s musket—a sentinel. Senor, do not make a sound that will betray us.”
Forward, a foot at a time, moved the pair, while not even a blade of grass rustled under their feet.
So quietly did they move, in fact, that, aided by the darkness and shadow of the grove, they gained a spot within less than thirty feet of the pacing sentinel.
Halting, Ramirez looked long and anxiously at this uniformed son of Spain.
When the Cuban placed his mouth close against our hero’s ear, it was to whisper:
“Senor, that soldier is one whom I know, for I have long had my eyes upon him. If all goes well, we shall soon have two guns. If I am deceived, our lives are not worth a peseta. If you hesitate, go back, and I will take the chance alone.”
“Go back?” whispered Hal. “Not when you go forward!”
Ramirez’s black eyes danced as he nodded.
Then, craning his neck forward, he whispered, sharply:
“Pedro! Pedro Escarillaz!”
In an instant, the sentinel halted, turning his head.
“If money will do you any good, Pedro Escarillaz, come here.”
Quick as a flash, the soldier’s rifle flew to his shoulder.
Then, reconsidering, he walked slowly toward the grove.
“Who called?” he asked.
“Men who have money,” answered Juan. “If you happen to be hungry, you will be glad that we have called you.”
Hal felt thunderstruck.
“Is this Cuban crazy?” he wondered, hardly knowing whether to run or stand his ground.
But the next second brought better counsel.
Up to the present, Juan had proven himself very far removed from a lunatic.
Nevertheless, Maynard felt cold shivers running up and down his spine as he realized that slight warning from this sentinel would bring the whole Spanish force down upon them.
“Who are you?” whispered the sentinel, stopping squarely in front of them.
He held the muzzle aimed at them, ready to fire at the slightest sign of need.
Yet that muzzle wavered slightly, as if the Spaniard’s fingers, tightly gripping stock and lock, were twitching.
“The Spaniard is more afraid than I am,” muttered Hal, inwardly. “I guess it’s the wrong time for me to get rattled.”
Though the talismanic word “money” had brought the soldier a little off his beat, it was plain that he feared some surprise, for he not only gazed keenly at his two accosters, but tried to peer over their shoulders into the darkness beyond.
“You called me?” he demanded, in a voice that could not have been heard twenty feet off.
“Yes,” answered Juan, coolly. “We need your services. We can pay for them. Could you use money if you had it?”
“Carramba!” muttered the fellow, his eyes gleaming. “Could I not?”
“Very well, Pedro Escarillaz; we do not want much—only two rifles and a hundred cartridges.”
“Carr-r-r-r-rajo!” swore Pedro, under his breath. “It is death to talk that way.”
“Then you cannot serve us?” demanded Juan, in a voice that sounded all but indifferent.
“How much do you offer?” asked the soldier, suddenly. “Fifty dollars.”
“Fifty dollars for a gun and cartridges?” repeated Private Escarillaz. “It is too little.”
“That would be altogether too much,” retorted Ramirez, imperturbably. “The price that I have offered must be for two Mauser rifles and a hundred cartridges.”
“Say seventy-five dollars,” proposed the soldier, “and I may be able to help you. But for less it cannot be done.”
“Then, Pedro Escarillaz, I wish you good-night,” answered Juan, performing a half wheel.
“Not so quick,” uttered the soldier, warningly. “Suppose I were to call the guard? You would lose your money and your lives.”
“True,” admitted Juan, composedly; “but then your officers would get the money, and you would get nothing. If you make a trade with us— why, just think what you could do with so much money.”
“If I only knew how to accomplish it,” murmured Pedro, his dark eyes snapping at thought of the good times he could have in Havana with so much wealth.
“Oh, very well,” said Juan, calmly, “if you cannot do it, we have made a serious mistake, and you have been a great loser.”
“Wait,” whispered Pedro. “In five minutes the guard will be changed.”
“And then——”
“I will do my best.”
Hal and Juan ensconced themselves behind some bushes. In ten minutes Pedro Escarillaz returned, trembling and pallid.
Almost in silence, the trade was made, the traitor not daring to look into the eyes of the purchasers.
Silently as shadows, the two latest recruits for Cuba stole off in the night.
But Juan Ramirez seemed to have grown a half a foot as he turned to his American comrade, murmuring hoarsely:
“Now,
mi amigo, for the long grass! Henceforth our only cry shall be ‘Viva Cuba Libre!’”
